Federal stimulus money will pay for repaving of the parking lots at
Interstate 90's Clear Lake and Des Moines rest areas in Jackson County,
according to a list of state projects announced Thursday by the
Minnesota Department of Transportation.

The $320,000 parking lot overlay and rehabilitation of curb and walkway at both rest stops is expected to start in September.

Bridge work in Windom was the next closest state project.

MnDOT earlier announced federal stimulus package projects being
undertaken by local governments, of which one was the replacement of
the Highway 20 bridge over County Ditch 3 a mile and a half west of
Okabena by the Jackson County Highway Department. That project has a
price tag of $378,000 and construction is expected to start right away
this spring.

Just three months into his second term, right wing Republicans have
begun their attacks on Rep. Tim Walz, as demonstrated by Mr. Klinger in
your paper on March 4.

Shame on them.

Rather than come
up with sound solutions for the devastating problems facing our
country, they want to use funny names (like "Porkulus," coined by Rush
Limbaugh) and associations with tired old rhetoric to describe
Democrats (tax and spend).

Sadly, right wing ideologues have made it clear they are rooting for failure that seems to be their only hope.

Mr.
Klinger, Rush Limbaugh and the other right wingers should take a deep
breath and actually think about proposing solutions rather than
partisan slogans.

Thank you to Rep. Tim Walz for standing up
for Main Street rather than for the Wall Street banks. Walz voted to
create jobs in southern Minnesota and he voted against spending
billions on a Wall Street Bank bailout. Clearly, his priorities are to
represent and fight for Southern Minnesota.

The comments that follow the letter are instructive, as the Republican line seems to be that none of the funding in the Recovery Act or Omnibus spending bill is destined for southern Minnesota. For ourselves, we can only hope that, whatever the passion that informs their denial, those Republicans slow down for the safety of the construction workers on Highway 14 (Omnibus funding) and I-90 (Recovery Act), as well as using the rest areas as needed when passing through Jackson County.

Winona and Goodview police will lose state funding in 2009 but hope to
bolster or maintain their forces with grants from a federal program
re-invigorated by the federal stimulus bill.

The departments are
joining thousands of police forces nationwide vying for $1 billion in
the stimulus bill to hire officers through the Community Oriented
Policing, or COPS program. Winona police hope a COPS grant will pay to
replace an officer position they expect to lose next month, while
Goodview police say the grant could fill a longstanding need to expand
patrols in that department.

An ambitious project to identify and seize economic
opportunities in southern Minnesota sought advice Friday from hundreds
of southern Minnesota leaders from the public and private sectors.

Using hand-held voting
devices, 250 participants winnowed six key industries to three:
bioscience, health care and renewable energy. It’s in these areas the
region has the best resources and opportunity to create jobs, they
agreed.

The wider process is called the Southern
Minnesota Regional Competitiveness Project, led by the Southern
Minnesota Initiative Foundation. . . .

. . .Next up was Margaret Anderson Kelliher, speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives and a Mankato native.

“This is not the southern Minnesota of the 1970s,” she said. No one here is looking back, Kelliher said.

After her address, she said the best
economic strategy takes advantage of home-grown entrepreneurs, who are
looking at a range of factors, not just tax breaks.

“Relocation is a bit of the Old World of economic development,” she said.

Both Klobuchar, currently the state’s only
senator, and Rep. Tim Walz touted the recently passed $787 billion
stimulus bill as promoting similar goals.

Walz acknowledged the bill essentially borrows from the future and said he doesn’t like deficit spending.

But doing nothing was a worse option, and the only way out of the recession is creating growth, Walz said.

We're really happy to see MNDOT post this data online about actual projects funded by the Recovery Bill, since it may help prevent local publishers from rushing to the sorts of judgments like the one David Phillips jumped to in his weekly column in the Spring Grove Herald:

The federal
stimulus package is supposed to help America get back on track. A
turnaround in the national economy will help Spring Grove, but there
are no specific projects targeted for our community or any of the other
small cities in southeastern Minnesota, according to a list put
together by StimulusWatch.org, which is tracking the "shovel-ready"
projects.

Spring Grove is part of MNDOT Region 6, in which guardrails will be replaced. Will any guardrails be replaced in Houston County? Good question. Will other Recovery bill funds head that way?

Media--old or new--should not confuse the information in stimuluswatch.org with the actual projects MNDOT and other agencies pick for the Recovery Bill dollars. We'll try to post links to southern Minnesota's share of the funding whenever we learn of it. Photo: I-90 near Albert Lea.

Sure, the stimulus bill will pump money into the economy and fix
some glaring infrastructure problems, but some Mankato business people
worry that one of the projects -- reconstruction of Hwy. 169 as it goes
through downtown -- may create new problems.

“We’re excited, we’re jazzed for the city to look better and more friendly,” business owner Tia Summers told the Mankato Free Press.“But it’s just really scary. Six months without our bread and butter? We might not be here in six months.”

The problem? As a commenter pointed out on Monday:

This article is solely about St. Peter merchants and businesses that
are affected by a potential Hwy 169 reconstruction in St. Peter. The
headline and first graph incorrectly refer to Mankato, not St. Peter.

We were born in Mankato and attended St. Peter's public schools from second grade through high school graduation and can attest that the Greater Minnesota cities are two different towns separated by miles of countryside. Most travelers on Highway 169 have probably noticed the same thing as they roll along the Minnesota River Valley.

Minnpost has had five days to correct the errors.

Is this geographic ignorance (and failure to correct a glaring mistake) what MinnPost is using the $105,000 it received in November from the Knight Foundation to "expand the local reporting capacity of MinnPost.com and provide a viable alternate local news site"? Kimball has expanded Mankato's boundaries to include St. Peter. That's one strategy for expanded coverage.

In announcing the grants, the president and CEO of Knight, Alberto
Ibargüen, said: "At Knight Foundation, we firmly believe that you
cannot effectively manage the affairs of a community in a democracy
without the free flow of information. That's why we believe that
information is a core community need, as critical as any to a healthy
community.

Without the MinnPost--and the foundation support to fund it--Minnesotans would simply be in the dark about the miasmatic jungles of Southern Minnesota. Why, they might have to turn to unpaid bloggers who are willing to post about local coverage and who know where to find towns like Mankato and St. Peter.

Now, being a blogger with a worldwide audience also comes with a lot of
responsibility. We've all heard at least one story about a blogger who
has misled, misrepresented or flat-out lied on their blog.

Simply put, there's a lot of garbage in the blogosphere and I won't hesitate to call out a Minnesotan who blogs recklessly.

The people-powered media revolution is knocking at our door, friends. It's time to peek between the curtains.

How much of the Kinght funding helps out with that? Or does it all go tohelp MinnPost make its own mistakes? For now, we're simply not asking MinnPost for directions.

(And yes, we have a screen shot).

Update: A member of MinnPost's team contacted us to let us know that the post is being corrected.

Now
if we can just convince the e-democracy.org team that we're not
remotely interested in spending our gas money on a trip to Duluth where
we can pay $99 for a hotel room and $35 for
the privilege of participating in an "unconference" in which the Blandin
Foundation-funded Minnesota Voices Project gleans what we know (just how many of those voices in the project actually live outside of the Twin Cities?).

We don't need help getting our voice heard online. And we certainly don't need to pay for the privilege of giving away our expertise to a funded grant project. [end update]

Slippery conditions are on our mind of late. We're heading to the Sunlight Foundation's Transparency Camp this weekend in Washington D.C. The ability of citizens to access government information is important to us, and lookng at various stimulus watch sites brings this home to us after friends asked for help in understanding one site in particular.

The friends' questions about that "stimulus watch" site taught another lesson: the importance for site designers to make the nature of their own sites--and the nature of the data that they contain--perfectly clear to the casual researcher.

All data isn't equal, and potential users--especially those who don't research for a living--need to be able to know what they're mining. They shouldn't have to dig to find that basic information about the database, either.

Our friends' confusion, coupled with headlines like Saturday's WaPo's Obama to Hold Cities Accountable for Stimulus Spending . sent us looking for sites that allow people to learn more about how money is being spent under the newly signed Recovery bill. Our search provided a look into the fascinating world of websites that re-crunch datasets, what the sites are, and what the casual reader might take take them to be.

The Obama administration has set up http://www.recovery.gov with the intent of allowing citizens to see how their tax dollars are being spent. The self description:

Recovery.gov is a website that lets you, the
taxpayer, figure out where the money from the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act is going. There are going to be a few different ways
to search for information. The money is being distributed by Federal
agencies, and soon you'll be able to see where it's going -- to which
states, to which congressional districts, even to which Federal
contractors. As soon as we are able to, we'll display that information
visually in maps, charts, and graphics.

The site features a timeline, which suggests when information about projects and spending with become available. However, since the project themselves in the 50 states haven't been selected yet, there's still not much to look at. That situation should change quickly in the coming weeks.

Again: recovery.gov is the official site. Given the enormity of the database management issues involved, it's not surprising some kinks need to be worked out. Watchdogs are keeping an eye on the Big Dog at recovery.gov. More on this development in a moment.

When using the limited, non governmental stimulus watch sites that have been set up, users should look
carefully at the way those private sites' designers used what are at
this point essentially wish lists We're hoping that users stop to consider the critical
thinking tools they need to evaluate watch sites themselves. A look at the site that brought friends to us for help in a bit.

Some of the state and local government databases and networks
expected to send data into Recovery.gov are not as advanced as the
federal site. They are not all compatible with one another or federal
formats, according to several watchdog groups involved in oversight of
the stimulus. Experts say fixing the problem could prove challenging at
a time when the goal is to speed stimulus money into the economy as
rapidly as possible.

“When the federal authorities give money to states, that tracking is
kind of opaque,” said Craig Jennings, federal fiscal policy analyst
with OMB Watch, which recently helped form the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery with 32 organizations. “The federal government gives money to states, states give it to cities, and it gets convoluted.”

The watchdog groups urged the Obama administration and the states to
quickly standardize those data formats and transmissions to maintain
the most up-to-date and accurate stimulus spending totals.

The database challenges with tracking federal spending are not all new. Some issues surfaced in the development of USASpending.gov,
which has been operating since December 2007. While the Web site has
received high marks for transparency in general, it has a mixed record
on subcontracts and grants.

Administration officials have pledged that Recovery.gov will allow
visitors to track the stimulus spending. That database will contain
data flowing into it from federal, state and local agencies and
possibly contractors. About half the stimulus money is expected to flow
through state and local governments.

On May 20, federal agencies are to begin reporting their competitive
grants and contracts, according to Recovery.gov. On July 15, the
recipients of grants and contracts, which include state and local
governments and businesses, will report on their performance.

21st Century School Fund
Building Educational Success together (BEST)
Center for Cities and Schools
Center for Community Change
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Center for Fiscal Accountability
Center for Responsive Politics
Center on Policy Initiatives
Common Cause
Consumers Union
Economic Policy Institute
Good Jobs First
Moms Rising
National Institute for Money in State Politics
National Training and Information Center

OMB Watch
Open Technology Initiative/New America Foundation
OpenTheGovernment.org
Partnership for Working Families
PICO National Network
Progressive States Network
Project on Government Oversight
Public Citizen
Public Knowledge
Smart Growth America
Sunlight Foundation
Taxpayers for Common Sense
Transportation Equity Network
United States Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG)
WashingtonWatch.com

Go take a look at what the umbrella recovery transparency watchdog group is up to. We've bookmarked the site for our own reference.

Now, the look at one the most heavily promoted private sites set up to let citizens monitor recovery project. Unfortunately, the limited scope of this site doesn't offer any local projects for Southern Minnesotans to follow. Friends report their consternation after using one site in particular, though their reactions are the result of a simple omission of prefatory information than from some darker to design to exclude them.

StimulusWatch.org was built to help the new administration keep its
pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials
to account for the taxpayer money they spend. We do this by allowing
you, citizens around the country with local knowledge about the
proposed "shovel-ready" projects in your city, to find, discuss and
rate those projects. These projects are not part of the stimulus bill. They are candidates for funding by federal grant programs once the bill passes. [emphasis added by BSP] Learn more by reading the FAQs.

This site has gotten a lot of attention, but what impressed us as we dug into the FAQ was the very limited scope of the data. If the projects are NOT part of the stimulus bill, what are they?

Today we are reporting that, in 779 cities of all sizes in all regions of the country, a total of 18,750 local infrastructure projects are “ready to go.”

The USCM site provides a number of ways to review the data. What the Stimulus Watch site provides, then, isn't so much accessible data (since that is searchable from a number of ways at the USCM site) but a forum for citizen watchdogging and commentary.

For the moment, it has nothing local for Southern Minnesotans to watchdog, though some of them were eager to chart the progress of the $625 million in local project requests they'd heard or read Congressman Walz forwarded to the Pawlenty administration. That's what brought this site and the larger questions raised about all citizen monitoring sites for the recovery to our attention.

That sentence, on the front page of Stimulus Watch could simply state that it database only includes projects from the 779 cities included in the United State Conference of Mayors' report. We don't think the project's creator wanted to mislead anyone--we think they just didn't give enough thought to the casual researcher who isn't familiar with site and database evaluation.

In short, most of the country. Figuring out the limits of the database needn't be that hard. Transparency advocates should create tools that don't require a grad school bakground in research methods to use.

The only state officer from rural Minnesota, Sellner plans to give
up her Brown County DFL Chairwoman position within the next month.

"I'm
looking forward to taking a greater role in helping the party statewide
and bringing the most rural voice," Sellner said about her new
volunteer position. "It'll mean attending more meetings at the state
party office. A staff does the day-to-day (DFL treasury) work."

Unfortunately, a quotation from Bluestem Prairie was incorrectly attributed to "state DFLers." Whatever this bovine blogger is, we aren't the state DFL. (We must confess to having been introduced to Brian Melendez. Seven or eight times.)

Hoping for a correction and accurate attribution of our copy, we wrote the Journal staff today:

I appreciate the New Ulm Journal quoting something I wrote about Lori
Sellner in your recent article about her election as state DFL
treasurer:

"Lauded by state DFLers for "one of the best work-to-ego ratios of any
activist we've met," First District DFL Chairwoman Lori Sellner of
Sleepy Eye was elected state DFL treasurer Saturday at its biennial
business conference.'

The quote--"one of the best work-to-ego ratios of any
activist we've met," is taken from this post:

However, Bluestem Prairie is not run by "state DFLers." It is a personal web
site ("blog") run by a private individual. While I caucus with the
DFL, I am not at this time a party officer on any level, nor am I a
party employee.

I hope you will print a correction and correctly attribute this material to its source.

This owner and author information is public and published on the site on the blog's "About" page:

February 06, 2009

The Niles (MI) Daily Star reports in Upton sponsors raise freeze, that a Michigan Republican has signed on to the bill to stop an automatic raise in 2009 for U.S. representatives. A couple of Minnesotans show up in the coverage:

Those lawmakers adding their names to the list are making headlines in
their respective districts, including Democrats Tim Walz and Collin
Peterson of Minnesota and Michigan's Rep. Mark Schauer, a Democrat
representing the state's Seventh District.

The news that Upton added his name to the list of co-sponsors came late Thursday afternoon.

"Nobody is hurting more than folks in Michigan," Upton said.

"As
our unemployment rate continues to rise, Michigan's families are
desperate for Congress to pass a bipartisan stimulus package that will
actually help our small businesses, put folks back to work, and put
more money in the pockets of those who need it most," Upton said in a
statement to the Star.

Neither Walz nor Peterson put out statements when they
signed on as co-sponsors (Walz was an original co-sponsor on January 6 and Peterson followed a little over a week later) and this reticence didn't exactly cause the district press to trumpet the news when it was timely.

Much later, Second Distrist Republican John Kline managed to get coverage in the Post Bulletin a couple of days after he signed on and put out a press release in late January. As we noted at the time, the article's writer phrases her report in a way that puts Kline out in front of Walz and Peterson on this issues. It's press release journalism at its most dreadful.

Speaking of Thomas, we have to hand it to the Niles, Michigan, paper for being ahead of the curve in its reporting, unlike the legacy press in Minnesota. Upton became a co-sponsor yesterday, and the article is online today even before the congressional staff has entered Upton's name in the list of co-sponsors (see the screenshot posted as a thumbnail in this paragraph; Upton' name did not yet appear among those of the bill's co-sponsors).

A short delay between signing on as a co-sponsor and having one's name appear on the list of co-sponsors on Thomas isn't unusual. What seems too rare among some of Minnesota's "real" journalists is simply looking at Thomas to see what the state's representatives are co-sponsoring.

February 02, 2009

We had thought that Heather Carlson, the Post Bulletin's new political reporter was improving. Guess not.

A Political notebook entry reads:

Kline cosponsors pay freeze

Second District Rep. John Kline is cosponsoring legislation to
freeze congressional salaries by halting the scheduled cost-of-living
pay increase for 2010.

"Men and women across Minnesota -- like many Americans -- are
struggling to make ends meet and learning how to do more with less,"
Kline said in a release. "With our nation facing economic distress,
freezing congressional salaries is simply the right thing to do."

He's joined by DFLers Walz and Minnesota 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson in cosponsoring in the legislation.

Alas, the reporter confuses the issuance of a press release with leadership on an issue, and the implication of the final sentence, "He's joined by DFLers Walz and Minnesota 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson in cosponsoring in the legislation" is that Kline is out in front on this issue, with Peterson and Walz the ones getting on the bandwagon.

However, that impression is bass-ackwards. It's surprising how much information Congress puts online via Thomas.

In it, we find all sorts of useful facts. One of these useful tools concerns bills. Ordinary citizens can discover who introduced a bill and when each co-sponsor signed on.

So who is joining whom in co-sponsoring H.R. 156? When we enter H.R. 156, in the "Bill Search Summary and Status" box right in the middle of the page today, we (and anyone else using the online tool) find that the bill was introduced on January 6 by Harry Mitchell (D-AZ-5). Tim Walz joined Mitchell that first day as one over 50 co-sponsors; Collin Peterson joined Walz on January 14.

Was the story turned in, held, and then printed as space permitted, without the editors checking to see if the copy was still accurate? Did John Kline know the article was in the works? Or had he or his staff seen the light earlier when Bluestem Prairie and Minnesota Independent reported about the DFLers sponsoring the bill in our January 14 entries.

Whatever the case, Kline put out a press release boasting about becoming a co-sponsor. Walz quietly did the right thing on the day the bill was introduced; there's no press release about it--or his refusal of his pay raise--on his congressional web site. We were not able to find a release from the Peterson office, but have left a call to verify that no release was indeed sent out. [Update: Congressman Peterson's press secretary confirmed that his office did not put out a press release about the fth CD DFLer becoming a sponsor of the bill. [end update].

Whatever the case, the bill now has 93 co-sponsors, so it's gaining momentum.

Count the Kaplans among those underwhelmed with the organization of
the inauguration. More alarming than media with credentials, like me,
who did not make it past inaugural security check points, were people
with precious tickets to the swearing-in.

"I know Josh Syrjamaki [a staffer for Congressman Tim Walz]
didn't get in," said Sylvia Kaplan. "My kids in D.C. all had friends
with tickets who didn't get in. The cops did not know anything, they
didn't seem to have any walkie-talkies. It's really hard to explain,
isn't it? I guess you could say it was a great [example of] democracy
because having tickets didn't do you any good."

CJ may find not getting into the inauguration alarming, but we rather like Sylvia Kaplan's take on this.

The situation kinda reminds us of what Atmosphere had to say about guarantees (the rant puts the spectacle into prospect--and the cravings for change and solutions for real problems as well):

January 14, 2009

Update #2: The article has been corrected in a timely fashion. The statement incorrectly attributed to Congressman Walz actually slithered out from between the lips of Second District Congressman John Kline, who indeed voted against the bill.

We preserved the original copy in the screen shot to the right, so our readers understand what the original flaw was in the article..[end update #2].

Mr. Google's handy news alert just sent us this item, Equal Pay May Be One Vote Away. In the article, CBN's Jennifer Mishon gets it very wrong about Congressman Walz's position on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

January 08, 2009

President-elect Obama made a pitch for his stimulus package today at George Mason University. The Washington Post reports:

. . .The speech today marks the start of the formal campaign to move through
Congress a stimulus package that Obama today portrayed in broad strokes
as an effort to "retrofit America" -- rebuilding infrastructure while
also investing in alternative energy, modernizing schools and extending
broadband Internet service to rural areas.. . .

The federal government may fund infrastructure projects with a proposed
economic stimulus package, and one local school district is hoping to
get a piece of the pie.

Parts of the Rushford-Peterson
elementary-high school building are more than 100-years-old and need
replacing, but the district and the towns’ residents don’t have the
money to fix the problems, officials said. The district now hopes to
obtain federal money and has expressed its concerns to U.S. Rep. Tim
Walz. . . .

. . .The district tried to find support from the state last year, lobbying
legislators to include some funding for the school project in its
bonding bill. That plan failed. After reading about a federal stimulus
bill measured in the hundreds of billions, district officials met with
Walz last month.

Walz has expressed support for a federal
stimulus package being negotiated between President-elect Barack
Obama’s advisers and House and Senate leaders.

“One of my top
priorities in the upcoming economic stimulus bill is to make sure that
worthwhile projects in southern Minnesota like Rushford-Peterson’s
school project are eligible to receive funding,” Walz said in an e-mail.

Congress convened Tuesday, and Walz was still unsure about the size and scope of the proposed plan.

Ehler
admits the district is a long-shot to receive any federal money in the
proposed stimulus. It’s worth a shot to try, though, he said.

Read the whole article at the WDN; the photo above, from the Daily News article, graphically illustrates the school's cramped stairs and hallways.

The New Ulm Journal added its voice to the call for no automatic raises for Congress, and like the other media venues making the argument, didn't mention that Congressman Walz voluntary (and quietly this year) returns his raises to the U.S. Treasury. The editorial ends:

We realize that some members of Congress work hard. We understand
that living in Washington is expensive. But many taxpayers work hard
and have trouble making ends meet too. A substantial number of them are
having to tighten their belts because of the downturn in the economy.

Members of Congress should set a good example by refusing the raises.

Too the paper couldn't share the fact that the First District congressman had set that very example--for two years running. In his satiric Daily Romp Through The Minnesota Blogosphere for Tuesday, the Political Muse gave what we hope was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion on what Walz ought to have done with the extra coin.

District media has published some heartstring pullers of late. The Owatonna People's Press reports a mother's grief after her soldier son committed suicide, inBrian remembered:

It has been exactly two years, but Connie Scott still has not found the
words to describe the raw grief she felt after her youngest son Brian
Williams died by suicide while home on leave from the U.S. Army, the
day before he was to return to Iraq.. . .

District 26 State Sen. Dick Day, R-Owatonna, is not sure whether he
would challenge the state Canvassing Board’s certification of Al
Franken as winner of November’s Minnesota U.S. Senate race if he were
in Norm Coleman’s shoes.

“Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose,” Day said Tuesday. “But (Coleman) knows better than I what grounds he has to sue.”

I note that on Jan. 2, the Daily Globe reprinted an editorial that
originally ran Dec. 29 in the Fairmont Sentinel. Titled “A pay raise?
Now??”, the piece suggested that in these hard economic times it would
be appropriate for members of Congress to forgo their annual
“cost-of-living” pay increases.

I’d read this editorial before; it
was referenced in the political blog bluestemprairie.com, with a short
additional comment. The Bluestem Prairie editors added:

“We agree
with the editors, faulting them only for a glaring omission: neglecting
to tell their readers that Congressman Walz has already refused his
raise — and last year’s raise as well. He will continue to send both
sums back to the U.S. Treasury.”
:

Since Rep. Tim Walz, whose district includes
both Fairmont and Worthington, has pledged to return his Congressional
pay raises until there is a balanced Federal budget — and is carrying
out that pledge — I think it’s appropriate for readers in the First
Congressional District to know about it.

Erickson refers to the "editors" of Bluestem Prairie. BSP is a one-heifer cow pen, bovine blogging with an addiction to the annoying editorial "we."

One-person political blogs are increasingly rare, but given the hacking of Soapblox today and the subsequent silencing for the moment of the diverse community at the Minnesota Progressive Project (formed by the merger of MNBlue and Minnesota Campaign Report), perhaps it's still helpful to have an few small blogs around.

We don't always agree with the MNPP's writers, but hope to see them back soon. The week long absence of the rightwing Residual Forces blog was no different, and we were pleased when Triple A returned.Note: Yesterday, we posted about other appearances of the automatic congressional payraise outrage narrative in the state's media, in which no one venting about this issue seeem capable of asking whether our senator (we have but one for the moment) and memers of Congress are accepting the raise. SeeMore Minnesota media mum on Walz when kvetching about congressional raises Surely, the traditional press is not so obsessed with cute puppy contests that they can't email communication staffers and ask the simple question.

We did so. Perhaps the editors decrying the raises are waiting for a press release from Walz that Republicans can scold for self-promotion.

More traditional media in the state has been content to simply complain about the automatic raises--justifiably so in these tough economic times--without noting that not all members of the state's congressional delegation are accepting those hikes.

Beginning this week, US representatives
and senators will be paid $174,000 a year. That represents an increase
of $4,700 and the 10th time since 1998 that congressional pay has been
given a boost.

As has become routine, this salary hike is taking place automatically - there were no hearings, no vote, no debate.

And no mention of it during the congressional campaigns just a few months ago.

It's only symbolism, of course, but maybe that counts for something
right around now. It might be fair to say when you're living the good
life in Washington, you lose touch with the real world to the point
where you don't understand what taking more taxpayer cash looks like. . . .

Like the newspapers, Collins didn't see fit to mention Walz turning down the money. Guess that would complicate the easy emerging narrative the media is fixing on this story. Heck, simply explaining that Walz has to continue to turn down the automatic raise from 2008, as well as the one from this year, takes more than a sound bite.

Sure, the congressman's return of the automatic raise is a symbol, but with last year's $4,130 COLA's now returned to the Treasury twice, along with this year's $4700 hike,i t's now a $12,960 symbol.

An acquaintance pointed out the fact of Walz's refusal of the raise in the comments section at News Cut, and we posted a comment at the Fergus Falls Daily Journal. Nonetheless, it's frustrating to observe members of the legacy media--even those using blogging platforms on traditional venues' web sites--develop a distinct lack of interest in whether what they're venting about applies to all those serving Minnesota in Washington.

When we read about the automatic COLA raise, we remembered Walz had turned down last year's raise, and contacted is spokester to ask whether he'd be returning this year's increase as well. It took all of five minutes to learn and write up the facts.

We think that Congress should have the courage to vote each time it gives itself a raise. In the meantime, it's good to know that Walz is returning the money. Unfortunately, those citizens who don't read BSP or the Mindy are simply invited by the mainstream media to get angry at all members of congress. Oh, outrage.

Who is served by that indiscriminate resentment? Or by omitting the fact that Walz doesn't accept these raises?

We're off to watch the Minnesota legislature start the session, via TPT.

December 29, 2008

Times are tough for many working men and women. Millions
are having to deal with unemployment. Many more understand that next
year will be tough for their companies. Pay raises normally given out
for good work may not occur.

Unless you are a member of Congress.
Members of the House of Representatives and Senate are to receive
$4,700 salary increases Jan. 1. That will take the base pay of 535
lawmakers up to $174,000 per year.

There will be no need for
lawmakers to vote on the proposal. Several years ago, Congress passed a
measure that makes such cost-of-living increases automatic. They can be
stopped only if senators and representatives vote specifically to
suspend them.

It will not surprise you that there has been little
interest exhibited in that idea, at least on Capitol Hill. According to
one report, a bill to suspend the raises has been introduced in the
House - but it has just 34 co-sponsors.

We realize that some
members of Congress work hard. We understand that living in Washington
is expensive. But many taxpayers work hard and have trouble making ends
meet too. A substantial number of them are having to tighten their
belts because of the downturn in the economy.

Members of Congress should set a good example by refusing the raises.

We agree with the editors, faulting them only for a glaring omission: neglecting to tell their readers that Congressman Walz has already refused his raise--and last year's raise as well. He will continue to send both sums back to the U.S. Treasuury.

Readers of Bluestem Prairie and the Minnesota Independent know this, since both venues reported it within the last week; those First District readers who only look at this editorial will have no idea that their own Congressman is turning down raises for the second year running. Idle minds might think that this basic fact is relevant to the discussion, but perhaps the only newspaper in the First to endorse Walz's opponent has good reason to leave Martin County in the dark.

Being a mere blogging bovine, we're probably just not clever enough to figure out what that reason might be.

Photo: Congressman Walz talks to constituents in a district grocery store. Photo from Minnesota Public Radio.

December 11, 2008

Perhaps the reason BSP is so critical about legacy media types dunking bloggers over accuracy is that we often find that the mainstream media has a really difficult time reporting simple facts about Tim Walz.

The House approved the plan, 237 to 170, mostly along party lines.
Among Minnesota's delegation, Republican Jim Ramstad joined Democrats
Betty McCollum, Collin Peterson, Tim Walz and Jim Oberstar in backing
the measure. Democrat Keith Ellison did not vote. Republicans John
Kline and Michele Bachmann voted against the measure.

Folks, here's the official roll call vote on the bill. Readers don't have to take our word for the vote--or the Strib's. Click on that link, and you'll find the Clerk of the House's record of the vote. Congressman Tim Walz voted against the bill, as did Congressman Peterson.

We have to ask: where does the Strib come up with this crap when it edits an NYTimes article?[Update: a note for clarity: the New York Times article didn't contain the error in fact about the votes by two members of Minnesota's congressional delegation, nor did it focus that tightly on Minnesota at all; that paragraph appears to have been added by an editor at the Star Tribune. [end update]

Meanwhile, Walz, the DFL 1st District representative from Mankato,
said he voted against it for the same reason he voted against the $700
billion Wall Street bailout package earlier this year. Kline voted for
that measure.

"Nothing in this bill will prevent the auto manufacturers and their
suppliers from continuing to move jobs overseas," Walz said in a
statement released after his vote. "And we have no guarantee that
spending $15 billion in taxpayers' money will actually solve the Big
Three's problems. We must preserve and create jobs in America but this
isn't the way to do it."

Some nights, we just have to wonder if there's something in the water up there. Time to take a blogger to the blog cabin for forty lashes.

The House approved the plan mostly along party lines. In Minnesota's
delegation, Republican Jim Ramstad joined Democrats Betty McCollum,
Collin Peterson, Tim Walz and Jim Oberstar in supporting the
legislation. Democrat Keith Ellison did not vote. Republicans John
Kline and Michele Bachmann voted against the bill.

That paragraph is awfully close to the Strib's version in the screenshot above (and equally incorrect about the Walz and Peterson votes), though not attributed:

The House approved the plan, 237 to 170, mostly along party lines.
Among Minnesota's delegation, Republican Jim Ramstad joined Democrats
Betty McCollum, Collin Peterson, Tim Walz and Jim Oberstar in backing
the measure. Democrat Keith Ellison did not vote. Republicans John
Kline and Michele Bachmann voted against the measure.

The Minnesota Independent gets it right in Minnesota delegation mixed on auto bailout and even manages to quote the statement Walz released after the vote. Fancy that. As the old joke goes, time for a seminar on blogger ethics. [end update]

Image: A screenshot of the Strib's article; see second paragraph, on the lower lefthand corner.

That so many people are researching this item made us think that some wise right-wing distortion artist has re-spun the urban legend, updating it to cover the 2008 election. After all: what tin-foil hat distortion artist could resist the heady mix of murder, inner city, welfare and the like being equated with the election of Chicago's Senator Obama?

So we did a little googling of our own, and while we haven't found the ur-source for this new version yet, we are seeing the urban legend walk again, purporting to describe the demographic differences between the geography of Obamaland and that of McCain Country. We find it peppered and posted all over, including the comment section of The Trail blog at the Washington Post.

Funny thing: the poster breathlessly reproduces the original 2000 election results; another commenter corrects them with the returns from this year. No one so far has challenged the malarky about "Alexander Tyler" or the opinions incorrectly attributed to Professor Olson at Hamline.

Other forums are not quite so sterling as those hosted by the Washington Post. In Car Dealer Forums, for instance, readers can learn about Some unreported stats about the 2008 election. Of course, it's media bias causing that lack of reporting--though some posters are calling poor Joe Olson senile.

Will the differences in election results and other whoppers in the email deter those who want to believe the missive's dire warnings, prompting even a moment's hesitation before they hit the send button as they forward this to 143 of their closest friends?

We'd sooner bet on a revival of interest in 8-track tapes. This re-invention of the earlier false urban legend is yet another terrific illustration of Stephen Colbert's definition of "truthiness," in which a perceived gut "truth" overrides facts. Urban legend? Who cares about falsehoods so long as a "value" close to the sender is being reinforced.

Indeed, bloggers come from practically nothing to being able to say whatever they wish. Now, how the heck did this metamorphosis happen?

It's just so messy; these bloggers who have been known to call other writers wankers and worse. You'd think that we didn't care about Minnesota when we do that.

Fortunately, relief is on its way from the menace of reckless blogging. MinnPost has hired a blog nanny to watch over those of us who presumed to set up.blogs without asking permission. Yes, gentle readers, the Blog Cabin is here to award gold stars to those nice people who fit the rules of high-quality journalism and to take naughty posters out to the blog woodshed, according to Minnesota Blog Cabin: Keeping an eye on the state's blogosphere.

We unwashed have all been served notice by one of Kramer's legacy media hires who, as far as the blogosphere goes, was born yesterday but stayed up all night:

Over the last few weeks, I've scoured the Minnesota blogosphere, finding more than 500 blogs with some kind of tie to the state.

Well, bless his little heart. And he's going to lay down the law:

Now, being a blogger with a worldwide audience also comes with a lot of
responsibility. We've all heard at least one story about a blogger who
has misled, misrepresented or flat-out lied on their blog.

Simply put, there's a lot of garbage in the blogosphere and I won't hesitate to call out a Minnesotan who blogs recklessly.

The people-powered media revolution is knocking at our door, friends. It's time to peak between the curtains.

We'd have thought that a "peek" between the curtains would be more in line, but who are we to judge a gentleman's pleasures?

Update: Looks like Minnpost has corrected its homonym error.

Since Mr. Site Traffic Software Log shows a hit coming to this post via a referring Minnpost email account, we know that someone associated with the online venue saw it.

Will we get spanked by our betters for pointing out that one? We certainly didn't get thanked for the free editing. [end update]

Good luck with that.

The new village scold prompts us to post this reckless video from the esteemed Marshall Bruce Mathers III (not work safe):

December 01, 2008

In Minnesota Is Not Massachusetts, Smart Politics has some rather unflattering things to say about the DFL's performance at the polls. An interesting analysis that is no doubt extremely substantial, though we wonder at the wording of this passage:

In other words, if the DFL is carrying the ‘right message’ for
Minnesotans, how is it that that the Republican Party held the
governorship in 2006, held 6 out of 7 Congressional seats since 2006,
and appears to have held, subject to the recount, the most fiercely
fought Senate race in state history?

Since the Republicans don't hold six congressional seats among the state's eight congressional districts, we think Ostermeier is only writing in the smart prose above about those congressional seats that Republicans held in 2006. The passage itself is certainly a lesson in smart style.

Were we to apply Ostermeier's clear diction and crystalline sentence construction to a discussion of the congressional seats and the statewide constitutional offices held by the Democrats since 2006, the passage might read something like this:

In other words, if the RPM is carrying the ‘right values/ principles’ for
Minnesotans, how is it that that the Democratic Party held the attorney general office in 2006, held 10 out of 10 Congressional seats since 2006 (with a gain of one that year), held a Senate seat in 2006, and gained two additional two statewide constitutional offices in 2006, though it appears to have lost, subject to the recount, the most fiercely
fought Senate race in state history?

It would be apparent to nonpartisan observers that a plurality – if not a majority – of statewide or district-wide Minnesotans are actually voting for Democrats in these high profile contests save one. Indeed, both questions--Ostermeier's and our own imitatio--remain in our mind after reading the learned analysis.

We are less impressed with the scholar's acumen when we find the doctorate of political science glossing over The Mysteries of Southern Minnesota's Recent Voter Behavior, which seem to puzzle political scientists everywhere:

Only Tim Walz (CD-01) successfully met the challenge to ride the
Democratic wave into office, and he was clearly aided in 2006 by
numerous gaffes made by Gil Gutknecht during his last term in office.

There must be something in the water up in the Cities that renders Walz's surprise--but definitive--victory in 2006 and this year's landslide unfathomable to people who are much smarter than your ordinary blogging heifer.

We tend to think that Walz won his seat in 2006 by out-hustling and out-organizing Gutknecht, who was feeling pretty snug. Another factor in the 2006 race was the deliberate and strategic organizing by the MN-01 DFL after redistricting. A strong tail wind didn't hurt, nor did Walz's unpretentious personality and skills gained in teaching, coaching, and soldiering.

Nah--those sorts of things on the ground couldn't matter, and so we see a DFL win explained by smart people as a mere Republican loss brought on by gaffes. Ostermeier is silent about Walz's 2008 win, so smarter people will just have to repeat that Walz is a good fit for the district or whatever the current conventional urban wisdom might be.

RPM Chair Ron Carey has launched one chestnut that posits that Walz's campaign spending "bought" the election, and we suspect we'll be hearing more of this one. Our disaffected pachyderm friends in the First tell us that Second District Republican Congressman John Kline would like Brian Davis to run again. This being the case, we doubt people smarter than we are will be blaming the 2008 GOP debacle in the MN-01 race on the candidate's gaffes, general haplessness and lack of appeal for the district's voters.

Instead, smarter people than blogging bovines will continue to call Davis "formidable," despite the fact that he had raised over $1 million by the pre-general election reporting deadline in October (see line 24 here) to get less than 33 percent of the vote. This is as formidable a loss as we know of in southern Minnesota.

The new RPM platitude is to point to Walz's fundraising as the culprit. A contrast of the MN-01 contests in 2004 and 2008, both presidential years in which the MN-01 race featured an IP candidate, might be a good starting point for determining the actual barrier for Davis. Indeed, Davis's fundraising and the duration of his campaign provide a sharp contrast to the bid by last-minute DFL candidate Leigh Pomeroy in 2004.

Pomeroy raised a $55,910 during his entire five-month campaign, launched in July 2004 when health issues forced endorsed DFL candidate Joe Mayer to withdraw from the race. In contrast, Davis first announced his bid for Congress in the unlikely confines on Representative Walz's own office, which Davis was visiting on behalf of ASTRO in April 2007. Davis didn't file his FEC papers until June 1, 2007, but we understand some very smart people in the Beltway and the Cities were already talking to him about running by then.

Davis thus had over a year more than Pomeroy in which to gain name recognition; purists might point to the endorsement and primary process, but even so, Davis had months more in the public forum and far more walking around money than Mr. Pomeroy enjoyed.

Despite a much shorter time to get to know the public and a comparative teensy treasury, Pomeroy not only received a greater percentage of the vote (35.59%) in 2004 than Davis did in 2008 (32.93%), but the prof and wine critic also received a greater number of votes (115,088) than did the Mayo oncologist (109,453).

Thus, when we turn to the dollar per voter ratio, Pomeroy raised $.49 per vote received, while Davis's ratio is $9.13 per vote. And remember, we're pumping up the DFL dollars here : the Pomeroy fundraising includes some money that came in post-election, while the Davis figure does not. (Walz raised $12.88 per vote gained--again, a figure that will change when the post-election reports are out; we will also be able to compare spending per vote).

Smart people will probably continue to ponder Southern Minnesotans' lack of interest in Brian Davis and will in time come up with explanations that are just as clever as their analysis of the 2006 Walz victory. It certainly can't be because of any weakness in a formidable candidate. We can't wait.

Photo: Anthropologists captured this image of southern Minnesotans in a recent expedition.

November 24, 2008

Is there a worse hack than G.R. Anderson, Jr., in the Twin Cities' press corps? He never met a Republican talking point about Congressman Walz he didn't wholeheartedly recycle (just as he has a hard time getting basic facts right).

The wet sloppies for hapless candidate Brian Davis (whom Anderson has repeatedly called "formidable", even after the dude raised over $1 million to score only 32.9% of the vote, the lowest percentage of any major party candidate since the First was redistricted in 2002) are one thing.

While the first district Republicans' endorsed candidate rejects government programs
to help incubate Southern Minnesota's nascent renewable energy
industry, we can report this evening that Bluestem Prairie has
discovered that the pachyderm party at least supports recycling.

However, Scripture reminds us that re-use isn't always the best
option. We recall that memorable analogy from the Gospels that tells us
to pour new wine into new skins, lest the old wineskin burst and leave
one heckova mess to clean up.

And hence a quip in the "breaking news" of Brian Davis's endorsement may indeed indicate that something's broke with Republican congressional campaigns.

Earlier this week, the NRSC released both a television and radio ad
centered on Tester's trademark buzz cut. Both are set in a fictional
barbershop and feature the punch line: "Conservative haircut. Liberal
values.

Like Walz, Tester unseated an incumbent.

We knew that the National Republican Congressional Committee was
short on cash, but we're surprised to see a new candidate's chances
poured so recklessly into the old skin of an unsuccessful slogan.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are awfully quiet about Walz's ranking as a centrist by the nonpartisan National Journal.
We think they are so far to the extreme right that the center looks
far, far way to the left. It's quite likely that Southern Minnesota's
common sense voters are closer to that center as well.

Anderson must think he's pretty clever to cite the RPM chair's dimwitticism, as do Ron Carey and his own hacks. Somehow, the fact that repeating this line didn't impress Southern Minnesota's voters in two back-to-back election cycles hasn't sunk in for Carey or the stenographers like Anderson who find this sort of thing fresh and enticing.

Perhaps Anderson simply lives for scraps of fawning attention from Ron Carey's favorite online hack. And while we hope Anderson might consider addressing that neediness in the privacy of an office of a skilled professional, we have to wonder what stake the MinnPost editors and proprietors have enabling Anderson's infatuation with the Republican Party's definition of Congressman Walz.

If the MinnPost editors agree to qualify the DFL MN-01 candidates in 2002 and 2004 as "formidable" (after all, each received a greater percentage of the vote on Election Day against Gutknecht than did Davis against Walz, while each raised a mere fraction of the money that Davis raised and spent this cycle), we'd be satisfied. [end update]

Second update: Ron Carey whines about Davis being outspent. However, it's interesting to do the due diligence and make the comparison that Anderson wasn't able to muster. Walz's 2006 pre-election filing shows that Walz had spent $697,445.19 by the time of the final fundraising report sent to the FEC before that year's election. This year, Davis had spent $742,052.36 by the time of the pre-election report. Davis's bid simply failed to catch the attention of voters and those willing to fund campaigns.

Walz's appeal to people in his district fueled his successful fundraising, and the percentage of the incumbent's dollars from within the district and state made his fundraising resemble more that of a challenger than an officeholder. Carey can shriek as much as he wishes that Walz bought the election, but the fundraising patterns reveal that Minnesotans in and out of the First Cognressional disitrict invested in an elected official whose work they appreciate. [end update].

Anderson notes that the Walz camp didn't talk to him for the article. Still, we have to wonder--yet again--why the Twin Cities media has such difficulty getting the basic facts right about Southern Minnesota's popular representative.

Today's gem? This passage:

A whole new generation of voters in the area can say Walz was their
school teacher or high school football coach or Air Guard superior —
sometimes all three.

Anderson was the sort of reporter dazzled by Davis's advanced degrees, and he lifts Walz's military service off the ground here. Congressman Walz served in the field artillery, not the Air Guard.

It may not matter in G.R. Anderson Jr.'s world, but those who trained with Walz are proud to be in the Army National Guard.

We're not even going to get into Larry Jacob's calling Walz "socially conservative." We just returned from the annual Minnesota Farmers Union convention, where the tendencies of urbanites to project preconceptions (and worse) onto their country cousins was a source of both consternation and mirth; reading this example is additional entertainment.

The article concludes with a rehash of Republican talking points. Anderson, who evidently has the Walz beat at MinnPost, seems entranced by the GOP notion of the First. We'll leave him to his cluelessness about why 62.5 percent voted for Walz, as opposed to that nice doctor Anderson so clearly identifies with.

So here's another bit o' wisdom from Uncle Bob. We agree: if the cap fits, let him wear it.